Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Campbell, Hunt, Luggar and Roome.

 RESOLVED, that the minutes of the meeting held on 9^th December 2019 (circulated previously) be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

(Please telephone the Corporate and Community Services team to prepare a form for your signature before the meeting. Interests must be re-declared when the item is called, and Councillors must leave the room if necessary).

There were no declarations of interest announced.

For discussion (attached).

The Chief Executive addressed the Committee, he advised that the new Corporate Plan had been adopted by the Council in September 2019. As part of the plan, the Council had identified four Corporate Priorities, which he outlined to the Committee as follows:

·         To achieve financial security.

·         To become focussed on delivering the best for our customers.

·         That our environment was cherished and protected.

·         That we plan for North Devon’s future.

He added that the Council’s Delivery Plan sat under the Corporate Plan and was a key part of the governance arrangements, which then fed into the service plans and then the staff appraisal system completing the “golden thread”.

He explained that the purpose of the meeting was to challenge the Heads of Service to ascertain whether they were meeting the Council’s Corporate Priorities. He then outlined the layout of the service plans and explained the headings associated with each one.

The Chair addressed the Committee and it was agreed that Car Parks should be the first area for discussion.

(a)       Car Parks

The Committee welcomed the Car Parks Manager to the meeting.

The Committee considered the Service Plan for 2020/21 for Car Parks (circulated previously).

In response to questions from the Committee, the Car Parks Manager confirmed that:

·         Under action 02 (new): Undertake wholescale review of parking charges and enforcement action: The service was reviewing how the systems currently operated, for example, there were plans to move to a more customer focussed approach to parking charges and enforcement. The idea being that it would allow users the amount of time paid for and remove overpayments. As part of the action, the Council would need to undertake a review of the technology as a whole. She added that the technology was available and was currently being operated by Newcastle City Council. North Devon Council were currently awaiting the delivery of a trial machine to enable testing in a car park. The new machine would allow for payment upon arrival with a simple tap of a debit card and when the customer returned to the car park, the card would need to be tapped again to enable charges for time spent in the car park.

·         She added that the charges were negligible and that any increased income should offset additional charges. In terms of the minimum spend of £3.30 on a credit card and the potential overhead for using such a card, she explained that this would be taken into consideration as part of the review.

·         To ensure that a charge to a card would not run on if a user forgot to tap the machine upon departure. She explained that measures would be put in place to set a maximum charge depending upon the individual car park.

·         Clear signage would be displayed in all Council owned car parks explaining that the maximum charge for the car park would be applied if the customer forgot to tap their debit card upon departure.

·         The Council would be exploring other providers of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 37.

To consider the work programme/forward plan 2019/20 (attached).

The Committee considered the work programme/forward plan for 2019/20 (circulated previously).

The Head of Resources advised that the budget was set at Full Council in February of each year having first been considered by the Strategy and Resources and Policy Development Committees.

He added that all of the relevant budget related reports were due for consideration at the next meeting of the Committee on 13^th February 2020.

In response to a question in relation to the reduction in funding to Town and Parish Councils, he explained each element of the funding streams and the reasons for the reduction. He added that the Council Tax base would be set on 15^th January 2020 following which a letter would be sent to all Town and Parish Councils to allow them to set their own precepts.

There was a request to invite the Associate Director of Commissioning Northern and Eastern/ Planned Care and Cancer NHS Devon Clinical Commissioning Group back to attend a future meeting following his attendance at the meeting in October 2019. There was also a request to invite a representative to a future meeting to discuss the Devon Doctors out of hours service and some issues that they were experiencing with the delivery of the service.

The Chief Executive advised that he would liaise with the Head of Environmental Health and Housing Services to seek the relevant contact information for the Devon Doctors service.

RESOLVED, that the work programme be noted.

Committee to discuss.

The Chairman addressed the Committee regarding the times of the scheduled meetings for 2020/21. He added that the times of the Committees up until the end of the current financial year had been changed to 10.00am following agreement with the members of the Committee.

He sought the views of the Committee as to whether they wished to change the times of the meeting to 10.00am into the next financial year.

RECOMMENDED, that the times of future meetings for the forthcoming financial year 2020/21 be changed to 10.00am.